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Yes, 2012. I realize I am somewhat late with this post, but my 2012 has thus far involved rehearsals for three shows, two full performance runs plus performances in three events, three jobs, and one adventurous and perhaps somewhat tragic not-a-relationship thing. But those are for NEXT year’s post. 🙂

One of the core, central beliefs by which I live is this: that all human beings are malleable. That I, and all of us, are capable of change, of growth, and of discovery, of making fundamental shifts in our worldview and in how we relate to others and ourselves. I’m a junkie for self-help books, websites, and audioguides ranging from C. S. Lewis’s Christian conundrums to Marc and Angel’s motivational posts to Morty Lefkoe’s limiting beliefs to Steve Pavlina‘s open discussions on everything from worklife to domination-submission. To anyone with an eye for how a person can improve.

In my own, personal story (elaborated on more substantially here), the single most important moment in my life was a time when I was in church, ten years old, with tear-filled eyes, my head down at my knees. At that time, I said to God, ‘I don’t like who I am. Help me become someone else, someone better.’ After that day, I looked to the people around me and observed what I admired about them, then sought to instill those values within myself. Courage. Humour. Honesty. Openness. Community-mindedness. Counsel. Extroverted exuberance.

When I tell this story to people – my origin story, essentially – the most common reaction I receive is this:

‘Well, you shouldn’t ever have to change who you are.’

Bullshit.

(If you know me in person, you know it’s exceedingly unusual for me to use such strong language. If you don’t know me and don’t consider this word as ‘strong language’, please replace it with a suitably surprisingly bold word of your choosing.)

Don’t change? Bullshit. I say, change who you are. Constantly. Discover the very core qualities that make you, you, and on a deep, gut level, grok them, understand them, and then decide whether or not you want them as a foundation for who you are. Reevaluate. Over and over again. Everything from how often you smile and laugh, to how you spend your time waiting in grocery line-ups, to what you believe is fundamentally true about human beings, to how you interact with strangers, to what makes you afraid, to how honest you are, to whether or not you’re as good a friend, lover or acquaintance as you could be… constantly identify ways to grow, prune, build, and level. Then do it. Change.

It’s not surprising I entered the world of theatre. Here, I can wear the skins of people with different intentions, worldviews, tempos, and rhythms to my own. Sometimes while exploring a character I’ll find an aspect of them that satiates me on a deep, gut-level – a whole-body grokking – and decide to try to hold onto that aspect for myself. Iago (see here, here, here, and here) helped me explore the intensely gratifying thrill of untethered ambition. As Donald (The Boys In The Band), I discovered the honest love behind unconditional loyalty. As William (William vs The World), I spelunked into the dark world of how a person can use self-delusion to shield oneself from loneliness, and into the desperation that kicks in when those illusions disappear. Malvolio (see here, here, here, and here) taught me how to use heartbreak as a powerful driving force, and performing improv taught me to trust not only my own gut instincts, but also those of whomever with whom I am sharing a moment. Over and over again theatre has helped me continue to shape and mold the very nature of who I am, cutting into the marble, adding slops of wet clay, drilling and firing and smelting and blooming.

One of my other core beliefs is this: I respect anyone who is trying to better themselves, be they an addict, my mother or even a former serial killer. We can all be better than who we are; we are all works in progress, always. That doesn’t mean we are not good, honest, eager, excellent people in the here and now. What it means is that we’re human. Malleable. Full of hope and opportunity.

Whether you want to or not, we all change. It happens. No one remains the exact same person throughout the course of their life, or heck, throughout the course of a year, or a month. What we can do, however, by admitting our protean possibilities, is direct that change for the better, be that through eliminating beliefs that are hindering, through shifting your perspective of yourself and of the world, through adopting new practices and personality goals such as honesty and openness, or through pursuing an innumerable other opportunities to grow, weed, cut, feed, nurture, and breathe.

There are many reasons someone might tell you to never change who you are. Perhaps they’re worried you don’t feel self-worth in who you currently are. Perhaps they worry you’ll trip up somewhere along your personal journey and get lost. Perhaps they’re afraid you’ll become someone other than their expectations of you. Perhaps they worry you’ll leave them behind. Perhaps it’s just their way of saying ‘I love you for who you are now.’ But I would add to each of these that anyone who tells you to never change who you are, refuses to see how amazing-brilliant-marvelous your future self will be.

Riaan Smit as the hustler, Andrew Wade as Michael’s friend and Michael Barry Anderson as the unexpected straight guest did fine work in their underwritten roles.

I was really appreciative that I finally got to see this ‘notorious’ play and found the story funny and darkly moving.

Given that I felt it was my weakest performance of the run, I’m delighted to receive such high praise. I’m not sure I agree that my role is underwritten, however. True, I don’t get a big emotional moment for myself like most of the other characters, but I’m onstage for pretty much the entire show, from an extended opening scene to the powerful finale.

It seems to always be when I have the most to say, that I have the least amount of time to say it.

Right now, my life is on a crazy tear, as I am partway through an incredible run of 17 performances of The Boys In The Band with Ghost Light Projects, and it has been an absolute privilege to work with such a diverse, talented group to put on a stunningly scripted, two-act power-of-a-piece on two weeks of rehearsals and a lot of gumption. Our cast ranges from a Film and TV veteran up on stage for the first time to a new VFS grad, from a working actor who earns a good living off his profession to the ’emerging artist’ (me). Decades between the oldest and youngest cast members. Now, don’t get me wrong – I enjoy working with teenagers (such as on the Panto) and actors in their early twenties, but I am also SO very grateful for the opportunity to work with men (and woman) who have a lot more experience in theatre and in life than I do. One of our fine actors works at the Make A Wish Foundation, and this show has been a wish come true indeed.

When I first graduated, I was worried I would leave school and promptly not do any theatre, fall into a dayjob and not get back out. So to counter this fear I took on every project that came along (and still do – let’s be honest). And so, since I graduated, I haven’t had more than three or four days away from a rehearsal or performance hall. Include school projects beforehand, and that run stretches probably longer than a year. But, being who I am (a new actor who can sing), most of my theatre work in the real world thus far has been in musicals, so to have the opportunity to sink myself into such a marvelous, serious, funny script as The Boys In The Band has been a great leveler. It has pointed out all the habits I own that I’ve let loose in musical-land, which don’t work so well in the realm of realism. My enunciation and lapses into over-articulation and sounding slightly British. My breathing habits. Finding the right level of energy with which to enter a scene and hit cues. Keeping up the pace.

And with last night’s performance, I feel we really hit our stride. Please, check us out – it is a fantastic show, and a landmark piece of queer theatre. (Sidenote: I take far too much pleasure in being a straight man playing a gay character, such an opposite to the usual circumstance.)

Tickets can be bought at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/217822 , and when the questionnaire asks who sent you, tell’em you bought tickets to see me. So I can get a bit of a commission on them to subsidize my bus tickets. Thanks; I appreciate it. And you’ll appreciate our fine show.